But even that's not true, there are tons of male civilian NPCs of all race, colour, age, and size walking around.

"Is there a way to go around indiscriminately kill characters in GTA V without being misogynist?"

Yes absolutely. Just go around shooting all the men instead.

This is really the problem with his, and Anita Sarkesian's depiction of GTA and other games - they claim they're misogynist games, because you can kill women, but there's no reason you have to kill women anymore than men and you'll be forced to kill far more men throughout the game. One women even calls a hit squad after you to have you killed as a male protagonist.

So much of their argument about misogyny through killing women is actually wholly a choice they make about how they choose to play the game rather than an inherent thing you have or need to do within the game. Effectively by GTA opting to put an equal mix of male/female NPCs roaming the street it seems they've opened themselves to misogyny claims, but if there were no women in GTA so you couldn't kill male and female NPCs equally then wouldn't they then call the game misogynistic for not having any women? It ultimately seems like a lose-lose situation because the feminists are going to find an excuse to attack it whatever they do.

Well murders, manslaughters, and violence caused A&E admissions have been declining too which comes with the implication that the violence that is happening is less likely to result in death or hospital treatment which means that the violence in question is probably actually less violent too (unless people engaging in physical violence have all become well disciplined marshal artists who all know how to attack only to stun). What exactly is your point? that although less people are punching each other they might be punching a little bit harder because they've played GTA?

Get a grip and stop talking nonsense. You've turned into a Jack Thompson like nutjob on this issue, there's nothing more to it than that. Video games don't cause violence, we've got an entire generation brought up in an era of violent video games now and guess what? they're the least criminal generation of young folks possibly ever:

http://www.independent.co.uk/v...

So if video games are turning people into prostitute murderers as you're suggesting where is the evidence of this? where is this actually happening? Why has an entire generation brought up on ever more violent video games become more placid than ever?

Your narrative on video games, violence, and women bears no semblance to reality. You seem to have got yourself so tangled up in that childish gamergate thing which is from what I can tell fundamentally just a battle between two different groups of Twitter attention whores and has fuck all to do with the many other millions of people who actually play video games in practice and are actually normal decent human beings that you've lost all sense of perspective on this issue.

And yet levels of violence have been drastically declining despite sales of violent video games drastically increasing making it almost impossible to claim violent video games have any kind of measurable impact on increasing violent crime levels.

Fallout 3 was based on the US too but that doesn't mean nuclear war has actually happened and that people are living or have lived post apocalyptic lives across America.

"The whole thing is a comment on American society"

Yes, that's why I said:

"some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world"

You don't have any idea what you're on about do you?

No violence you can choose to commit against women in GTA is because they are women. None. In fact, even the games most psychopathic protagonist Trevor right at the start of the game takes a woman hostage and lets her go opting to run away instead.

So yes there is a double standard. At least play the game through before commenting because currently you're just making shit up in a weak attempt to try and justify your viewpoint.

"As to if it is acceptable... Well, I'd just question why it is there at all."

You could ask the same question of any scene in any book or movie involving sex or violence.

Why is it there? Because it's not meant to be acting as a beacon of how the world should be but instead is fictional commentary on how the world is.

Setting the world to rights isn't GTA's job anymore than it's the job of Hostel, or 50 shades of grey.

"Movies make an effort to censor themselves. War films don't show the real horrors of war because it would give the audience PTSD."

Absolute and categorically incorrect bullshit. Movies show stuff that video games can't even come close to showing, if you put anything like Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, or the Human Centipede in a video game it's an instant ban for that game. Manhunt was far far tamer than all those films yet it was banned. War movies show far worse graphic violence and far greater impacts of war than any Call of Duty or Battlefield game ever has.

"They could, for example, make the prostitute disappear after the act off-camera so she can't be murdered"

Yes, and 50 shades of grey could be a book that says "A women has fantasies about being dominated, but the man respects her too much so refuses to. The End." but it's not, because some forms of entertainment like to explore the reality of the world, or our fears, our thoughts and so forth in a bit more depth than that.

The fact is there are parts of the world, even in Western countries like the US where the sort of shit as in GTA happens. Why should video games be held up as some medium cannot explore the reality of the world in which we live in like movies and books can? Why hold them to different standards and suggest video games may only be used for the purpose of advertising the ethics and morals of an ideal world rather than as an exploration of the real world?

Nothing in GTA says "You should go and do this for real".

No, the Xbox One / PS4 versions were recently released and have quite a boost in terms of graphics and content since the 360/PS3 versions came out and so they're currently in heavy sales territory again as it's been a well received and well selling re-release of the game.

But you're right regardless, a handful of stores in a country with a population of only 20 million have stopped selling it? Seriously who cares. Anyone in Australia that wants it will just buy it elsewhere and Australia isn't exactly a very big market anyway.

It's probably because it's a French company doing a rollout in British territory. The French sources will quote km, the British will quote miles.

You realise that a lot of that text is there as a constant patchwork to close all the loopholes companies have been looking for?

"Pay 21% tax on profits" isn't difficult for anyone or any company to understand, yet apparently Google, Amazon, Apple, Starbucks et. al. have exactly that problem - the rest of tax law doesn't make it difficult unless you're explicitly looking for loopholes NOT to pay it.

So using the excuse that tax law is too complicated to be worth paying tax is a sick joke.

Well you're shifting the blame of arbitrary seizures of corporations away from him and onto the victims so how can that be seen as anything other than apologism?

I'm not terribly sure how Putin can ever be called a Western parrot when he's spent the last decade or more so desperately trying to stir up confrontation with the West.

I can only conclude that you're an incredibly confused individual as nothing you say bears any resemblance to reality or makes any kind of sense.

It's no more emotional nonsense than your apologism of Putin's authoritarianism is. If you want to discuss the issue rationally you'll have to start by quitting with the apologism and start accepting reality - that numerous companies have been hijacked by Putin and his cronies not because those companies were failing (how could anyone call VKontakte failing under this guy? It's been growing like crazy in Russia) but because they didn't do what Putin wanted.

You blame the business leaders and offer excuses for Putin like all too many Russians do, when in reality Putin is the problem. Until you can accept that Russia is going to continue it's century long problem of failed imperialism and subsequent eras of abject poverty when it keeps on collapsing then nothing will change with Russia.

Russians need to start recognising their leaders are the problem time and time again if they've ever any hope escaping their constant cycles of weak rises followed by massive falls.

"But I did buy a PS1 (because I hate Nintendo even more than Sony) and a PS4 (because MS made all the wrong moves in the early days of the XboxOne). So that says SOMETHING about the quality of their consoles."

No it doesn't. Microsoft making wrong moves pre-release says nothing about their actual released system.

I have all current gen and last gen consoles. The PS4 has the least polished software and controller, but has the nicest physical console design and best specs. The Xbox One has the most good games, by far the best controller, and a joint best UI with the Wii U, but the Xbox One is physically much to big and ugly. At release the Xbox One was also overpriced relative to performance but now it's often much easier to get it cheaper than the PS4 so offers better value for money at this point just over a year in to the X1/PS4 release.

The Wii U is different, it's UI is polished, it's games are almost entirely consistently excellent quality, but it's underpowered relative to it's price, and there aren't enough games even though the bulk of what's there is incredibly high quality.

So they all have their pros and cons, there's nothing inherently high quality about Sony's console, in fact, whilst the Xbox One and PS4 both had far more release issues than they should have I'd argue the PS4 had the lowest quality launch in terms of number and seriousness of defects. Neither were ready for release when they were.

Because Putin holds grudges. Defy him and you're on his hit list.

Putin's regime has a long history of not just seizing companies or putting a stop to things that dare defy it but also crushing the lives of the people who carried out the defiance in the first place.

Look at Litvinenko, he hadn't been in Russia for years, was a British citizen, yet they were still willing to send Lugovoi to poison him in London with Polonium.

Like all brutal authoritarian regimes, it's about sending a message - do as we say without question, or we'll kill you.

"Always government at fault in Russia, even for things it's not remotely involved in."

Given that the Russian government involves itself in everything from who you have sex with to running of companies, to how sovereign states should vote to annexation of their territory the number of things it's not involved in is pretty much nil anyway.

"Putin is a lot better than he could be"

Yes, he could do worse, he could actually fire the nukes. Unfortunately doing everything but that doesn't exactly act as a valid argument for not viewing him as an absolute wanker with a severe case of little big man syndrome that the world would be better off without.

No you've got it completely backwards, tax law is extremely simple, and that's it's flaw.

When income tax for corporations simply says something along the lines of "You must pay 21% tax on all profits" there's nothing complex in law. What's complex are the tax avoidance and evasion schemes that go out their way to redefine profit as something else.

It's the evasion and avoidance schemes and all the lawyering that goes around justifying profit as not actually being profit that is complex not the tax law itself. When someone says "tax law is complex" what they mean is that "finding ways to legally justify not paying tax is complicated".